Press Tour in Cyprus 2010

Kaspersky Lab hosted an international press tour in Limassol, Cyprus as part of its Security Analyst Summit which took place between 3 and 6 June, 2010. In attendance were approximately thirty of the IT security industry’s top journalists, representing some twenty nations from around the world. Among the many things going on at the event, they were all particularly keen to hear four key presentations given by some of Kaspersky Lab's leading virus analysts.

Roel Schouwenberg, a leading antivirus expert for Kaspersky Lab in North America, presented on the topic of 'Flash and PDF Тhreats - Adobe's Achilles' Heel', providing an explanation of just why Adobe products have become such popular targets for cybercriminals. Adobe software is still very susceptible to widespread infection as a result of drive-by downloads and targeted attacks.

In his presentation, Roel highlighted the fact that despite all of the measures taken by Adobe's security specialists the situation remains unresolved because there is a major problem with both Adobe updates and updates from third party vendors. In closing, Roel demonstrated that effective measures can be taken to combat the problem of PDF and Flash threats.

According to Stefan, considering how widespread intellectual property theft and corporate espionage are, it is crucial that software is updated regularly and that employee awareness is heightened regarding IT security and social engineering attacks. Stefan rounded off his presentation by informing those present about some methods which may be employed to prevent the leakage of corporate information, tips that may be useful for some home users as well.

In his presentation, Costin Raiu, Director of the Global Research & Analysis Team, spoke about 'Hector's Vault: Inside the Trojan Dropzone'. Costin shared the results of his research on 'dropzone' servers with the assembled journalists. A dropzone is where cybercriminals keep stolen personal information. Detecting such servers is not very hard, but it is much more difficult to put them out of action, let alone get access to the data stored on them.

Costin provided an insight into how such dropzones operate and provided some statistics regarding the amount of profit that the cybercriminals who own such servers make. However, as he has mentioned in previous presentations, ways to resist the threat do exist and it was emphasized that most problems can be avoided if software is updated regularly and antivirus software is installed on computers.

Denis Maslennikov, Head of Kaspersky Lab's Mobile Research Group, gave a talk on 'Mobile Malware and the Internet: Myth or Reality?' Denis took an in-depth look at the evolution of mobile malware that exploits the Internet to achieve its aims. Statistically, the number of such threats has dramatically increased since the middle of 2009 and the forecast for the future seems even bleaker. In his report, Denis discussed the emergence of mobile botnets and explained just how cybercriminals can use them to make money.

All of the journalists present had an opportunity to talk in person with the Company's CEO, Eugene Kaspersky and to interview the Company's leading IT security experts on a one-to-one basis.

After the hard work was over, those who attended the summit took a day off to relax and unwind by honing their speedboat handling skills and enjoying Cyprus' sandy beaches.